Viewlogic Systems upgrades Workview IC design tool suite

Electronic News, May 11, 1992 by Peter Dunn

BOSTON -- Viewlogic Systems Inc. last week introduced a full upgrade of its Workview IC design tool suite that also provides a standards-based framework for integration of other vendors' software.

Powerview, which made its debut at the Custom Integrated Circuits Conference here, marks a departure from earlier Viewlogic packages because of its modular approach. Individual tools are run separately as needed, under a common user interface. This modular approach utilizes native support for the CAD Framework Initiative 1.0 pilot, a preliminary version of a new electronic design automation standard.

Although that standard has not yet been made final, Michael Emley, Viewlogic vice president of marketing, said the company perceives little risk in adopting it. He pointed out that Viewlogic is deeply involved in CFI technical committees, and added "Our history and our culture say that we grab ahold of emerging standards. We've never seen going after a standard as a risk; we've always been ahead and we've never been burned."

In addition to upgraded versions of Viewlogic's design entry, simulation and synthesis tools, Powerview includes Viewscript, a C-like extension language that allows users great flexibility in configuring the design environment and integrating in-house or third-party software. Used by engineers at Viewlogic, the language does not require compiling and includes a debugger.

"We took our existing code and ripped it apart," said Mr. Emley. "We rewrote the software for Unix from the bottom up, to take advantage of Unix capabilities and features." Unix versions of Workview had been ported from MS-DOS.

The new package carries list prices ranging from $26,500 to $70,000. Versions for Sun Microsystems workstations are to ship in June, with a Hewlett-Packard version following in the third quarter. Support for Digital Equipment Corp. and IBM computers will follow, said Mr. Emley. Systems requirements are 24MB of RAM and a 400MB hard disk. Powerview will be a maintenance upgrade for current users.

Viewlogic will now maintain two parallel product lines, for Unix workstations and PCs. On the PC end, a 32-bit port to Microsoft Windows is under way, said Mr. Emley, and the company is evaluating the forthcoming Windows NT operating system. He warned, however, that "not all of Powerview's functionality will port to the PC." A PC version is expected by the end of the year; until then, Workview will remain as the company's PC offering.

Powerview has four tool sets: design entry, simulation and verification, synthesis and targeting, and layout integration. Designs can be entered via VHDL, ABEL, truth tables, state diagrams and tables, functional block diagrams or schematics, through a waveform editor, or through a new graphical VHDL entry tool called Envision VHDL, which includes technology from iLogix Inc. "The graphics reside on top of the VHDL," said Mr. Emley. "You don't need to go into a text mode."

The new simulator, Viewsim/XL, includes VHDL simulation and debugging, as well as mixed-signal simulation. "It's the next step before analog synthesis," said Mr. Emley. "It's circuit-level analog optimization." Viewlogic claims a speed boost of between 10 and 100 times for the new Viewsim. A "save and restore" feature allows the user to pause during design of large ASICs, saving the state of the simulator, and return to that point at a later time. Incremental netlist capability eliminates the need to recompile entire designs when changes are made.

Viewsynthesis, based on technology from Arche Technologies, offers VHDL logic synthesis, plus tools designed to ease the "recycling" of designs, such as mapping of PLD and TTL designs into FPGAs.

Mr. Emley also noted that Powerview is both upward and downward compatible with Workview, so that users can run both tool-sets and exchange data if necessary. In addition, the package supports Digital Equipment Corp.'s PowerFrame data exchange framework, allowing the use of a heterogeneous database.